ThatConference Codeathon recap

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

We are back from ThatConference after hosting another successful codeathon. I'm always thrilled to see the participation we get from our friends in the upper midwest. A couple dozen developers gave up their entire weekend to write code for Humanitarian Toolbox on the Saturday and Sunday before ThatConference.

I also must thank Falafel Software for their generous sponsorship that enabled us to host the event again. We greatly appreciate the support.

We worked on two different applications while there: Crisis Checkin and the Humanitarian Data Bus.

Crisis Checkin

We spent two days working on the mobile applications for Crisis Checkin, using the Xamarin toolkit.We had a UX designer at the event, so we made the most of the opportunity. At the end of the two days, we now have UI screens for all the major interactions on all the major mobile platforms. We have an API design for the server side code, and we're ready to start implementing the WebAPI services.

Humanitarian Data Bus

The Humanitarian Data Bus is a new project. The purpose of this application is to provide a common interchange mechanism for disaster relief organizations. There's a large amount of data that different organizations collect during recovery and rebuild. This application will enable those different organizations to share that data. It will mean that everyone involved has better information, and therefore makes better decisions during the recovery and rebuild operations.

The overall architecture was created, and the initial shell of the application was coded. It's had a strong kick start, and we'll be getting that code on our github page soon. When it appears, we'll be ready for more work and more pull requests.

Again, I want to thank our hosts at ThatConference. They did a wonderful job to make our codeathon a success. They provided space, food, and got the word out to interested developers. We couldn't have done it without your support.